MHKY: Semifinal Preview
MRU hosts Alberta while Saskatchewan welcomes UBC
Article by Brian Swane, special to CW
Feb. 28, 2025 - The 2025 Canada West men’s hockey postseason continues this week with the semifinal round, and if it’s anything like the quarterfinals, the action will be exhilarating.
In best-of-three series, the UBC Thunderbirds visit the Saskatchewan Huskies in Saskatoon, while the Mount Royal Cougars host the Alberta Golden Bears in Calgary. Games 1 and 2 are set for Friday and Saturday, with Game 3s scheduled for Sunday if necessary.
Last week saw Alberta get past Calgary and UBC survive MacEwan in the quarterfinal round. Both series went the full three games, needed overtime to decide Game 1, and had another game decided by just one goal.
Semifinal winners advance to the championship series, to be hosted by the highest remaining seed March 7-9.
Catch all the action on Canada West TV - Presented by BioSteel.
Alberta Golden Bears at Mount Royal Cougars
📍 Flames Community Arenas – Calgary, AB
- Game 1 – Friday, Feb. 28 – 7 p.m. MST
- Game 2 – Saturday, March 1 – 7 p.m. MST
- Game 3 (if necessary) – Sunday, March 2 – 5 p.m. MST
Since joining Canada West a dozen seasons ago, the Cougars men’s hockey program has grown tremendously, becoming a perennial playoff team. Now, after knocking on the door for several years, could this be the postseason when Mount Royal finally reaches its first Canada West championship series in team history?
Mount Royal have certainly never been in a better position than now. After finishing the regular season with a program record 22 wins and 44 points, the Cougars earned its first quarterfinal bye and will now host a Canada West semifinal series for the first time in team history.
Contrast that with Mount Royal’s opponent. Alberta is winningest program in conference history, with 29 championships, the most recent coming in 2022, and has failed to reach the Canada West final just thrice since 1996. One of those times, however, was last year, when the Golden Bears were knocked out in the semis by eventual champion UBC.
Alberta has already had its mettle tested this postseason, facing elimination in Game 3 against Calgary last Sunday, when the Bears delivered a decisive knockout blow, winning 4-1 in Edmonton.
The Cougars and Golden Bears faced off twice during the regular season, at the end of November, and the results couldn’t be more even: each beat the other by three goals in their home rink.
Alberta and Mount Royal were the two highest-scoring teams in the regular season, and each had three players finish within the top for total points. Cougars blueliner Clay Hanus led the conference with 31 assists, while Alberta’s Sean Tschigerl was one of two players in Canada West to reach 20 goals in 2024-25.
UBC Thunderbirds at Saskatchewan Huskies
📍 Merlis Belsher Place – Saskatoon, SK
- Game 1 – Friday, Feb. 28 – 7 p.m. CST
- Game 2 – Saturday, March 1 – 7 p.m. CST
- Game 3 (if necessary) – Sunday, March 2 – 6 p.m. CST
The defending champion T-Birds, who won the first title in program history last year, are finding its not easy being on top. They’ve already had to survive the quarterfinal round, rallying from a 1-0 series deficit against upstart MacEwan in the bid to retain their crown.
Now UBC faces a Saskatchewan team that finished with both the most wins and points in the Canada West regular season standings and is well rested after having a bye through last week’s quarterfinals. If they are to advance, the T-Birds will need to find a way to beat Saskatchewan twice in a rink where the Huskies lost just once in 2024-25.
UBC can draw on its two regular season meetings with the Huskies, which came just three weeks ago in Vancouver. The T-Birds blanked Saskatchewan 3-0 on Feb. 7, then lost 3-2 in a game that required a shootout on Feb. 8. That makes UBC one of just two teams in Canada West to outscore the Huskies in head-to-head meetings this season.
There are very few cracks in the Huskies’ armour. In addition to having Canada West’s top goal differential in 2024-25, Saskatchewan also ranked first in both power-play and penalty-kill percentages. The Huskies totalled a massive cumulative special team rating of 120.5, compared to 93.2 for UBC.
Still, there is nothing quite like experience, and the T-Birds boasts a roster rich in just that intangible, thanks to their championship run of 12 months ago. Over the last two postseasons, UBC is an incredible 6-0 when facing elimination. Saskatchewan, meanwhile, has just one player, fifth-year forward Justin Ball, remaining on its roster from the last time the Huskies won a semifinal series, in 2020.